


In the Quiet (or a Study of Jason)

by LostUnderTheSurface



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostUnderTheSurface/pseuds/LostUnderTheSurface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Within the quiet, he finds his soul again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Quiet (or a Study of Jason)

**Author's Note:**

> First part of title taken from In the Secret by MercyMe.

Jason Todd is a brawler. He is, in his most honest form, a blunt instrument of destruction. His rules are simple: Hit first, hit hard, and go for the gold with every d--- thing in him. His temper is explosive, his mood swings are sudden and, at times, unpredictable, and he prefers to jump headfirst into a situation and sort out the details on the fly.

For all that, however, he is very, very smart. Wily, cunning, and manipulative in a way that can only come from spending his formative years on the streets with the liars and the thieves and the con men. His instincts have been sharpened and honed by hands far rougher than those which raised his “family” (Damian is an exception). He learned to strike while the iron is hot, and unlike Bruce or Tim's colder, more logical approaches to things, Jason is more prone to find sensitive parts and ripping into them until there is nothing left to bleed. He likes to make noise, to be heard, to be known as someone loud and forceful. It gives him a strange sense of power.

But he likes the quiet, too. Early mornings with the newspaper crosswords and a mug of tea (Talia's influence), rainy afternoons at the library with an engrossing novel, moonlit patrols on clear nights when the air is clear of Gotham's smog and he can smell the river's wind, impromptu bonding moments with the bros when they collapse against him on the sofa at 3 AM and sleep the righteous slumber of someone dead to the world.

He likes these moments. They feel...different. Not powerful or anything. Just...calm. Peaceful. _Free_.

He still enjoys being loud, of course. Hard rock and heavy metal when he's working out at a safe-house are not uncommon. Occasionally he loops it through his helmet to block out of the cries of unfortunately evil-doers and the crackling of his comm. Oracle hates it when he does that, and it makes him strangely satisfied to hear her scolding him over the deafening shriek of Green Day and Metallica.

There are other times, when he's alone in his den, when the voices are too loud and the green bubbles in his veins, that he turns on a different kind of music and hums along to drown out the roaring in his ears. He stress-bakes like a true student of Alfred Pennyworth, cleans obsessively, and spends hours loading and unloading and reloading every gun in the building. The whole time, he tries to concentrate on the melodic strains of Tchaikovsky or Wagner echoing through the halls until he's exhausted himself and has to crash in the living room, lulled to dreamless sleep by the harmony of strings and wind and percussion.

If he's forced to team-up with one of his “siblings” for the evening, he prefers Damian as a sidekick—or partner (yes, Demon-Spawn, you are my _partner_ , stop threatening to lobotomize me or I will put another bullet through your spine). The brat may be pompous and arrogant and oh-so-snarky, but he is competent, too, for a child just entering his double digits. He's also excellent comedic gold because he takes himself so seriously.

Timmy does, too, but while Timmers is just as good as Damian when it comes to kicking butts, he makes Jason feel guilty for killing people. Plus, Tim-Tam sometimes gets that hero-worship thing in his eyes, and Jason can't stand to see it. It makes him feel like he's trampling helpless innocents, to know that he can never live up to Tim's vision of him.

Dick is the worst partner, naturally, not only because of the killing-people-guilt thing, but also because Jason can never stop comparing himself to the Golden Son of the Bat. Dick is everything Jason always tried to be, and everything he will never be. Dick is the winter snow on the moutain's sun-lit peak, and Jason is cursed to wander forever in the grim of the valley below.

Sometimes he thinks his favorite place is when he's alone in the quiet. In the quiet, he can be...well, not himself, exactly, but some version of that person. Some lost remnant of the boy he once was, perhaps. A piece of him that died in the warehouse fire, in every swing of the Joker's crowbar, in every harsh word and disapproving glare that Bruce sent his way.

In the quiet, he finds it again. It is lonely there, where the silence reigns and the voices are low murmurs at the back of his mind, but he prefers it that way. He likes the quiet. It makes him think of his mom (Catherine, not Sheila, never Sheila) in those few precious memories he has of her in their house before Two-Face and overdoses and dark, cold nights under newspapers and in boarded-up rooms. He remembers her giving him medicine when he was sick, getting him ready for school, fixing his favorite meal, taking him shopping. He remembers her hand, warm in his, the fingers calloused and slightly curled but still stronger than any other he's ever known (and that includes Bruce's).

He finds all of that in the quiet. It makes him sad and angry and vengeful, but he goes back to it again and again, because without the quiet he is nothing but a beast, a brawler drunk on the spirit of the battle.

Within the quiet, he finds his soul again.


End file.
